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Review: James Ehnes’ solo with the SF Symphony was so good it spawned two encores

Joshua KosmanMay 3, 2019Updated: May 3, 2019, 6:46 pm

Violinist James Ehnes Photo: B Ealovega

When musical soloists play particularly well — and often, frankly, when they don’t — the audience will generally call them back for an encore. It’s much less common for an encore to be so thrilling and so magnetic that it generates an encore of its own.

But that’s what happened during violinist James Ehnes’ guest appearance with the San Francisco Symphony on Thursday, May 2. After his performance of Bruch’s G-Minor Violin Concerto, patrons in Davies Symphony Hall said “Tell us more” — which led in turn to a second return trip.

Please understand that this was not one of those cases where the main event is so exciting that only a long string of encores, the kind that musical marathoners like Yuja Wang or Yo-Yo Ma undertake, seems commensurate. This was something different and rarer — an encore in response to an encore, like spores growing out of other spores.

Ehnes’ account of the Bruch had been perfectly fine in its way. As the orchestra provided sonorous but rather stolid accompaniment under guest conductor Marek Janowski, Ehnes covered all the concerto’s bases with conscientious fervor.

He deftly unspooled the passagework of the opening Prelude, with its vigorous melodies and brusque violin chords built on two, three and even four strings at once. He brought an appealing grace to the central slow movement, and shaped the gypsy strains of the finale with gritty intensity.

Yet none of that quite prepared a listener for the tonal beauty and dramatic flair that Ehnes brought to his first encore, a rendition of Ysaÿe’s Sonata No. 3 for Solo Violin. This is one of an exquisitely varied set of six such pieces, each one dedicated to a different violin virtuoso, that range in style from neo-Baroque to full-on early modernism.

In Ehnes’ hands, the Third Sonata emerged as a work of extraordinary ingenuity and power. The angular dissonances of the opening, at first arch and daunting, resolve with gradual but impeccable musical logic into something more approachable — yet without ever losing the undercurrent of sinewy force.

Ehnes caught that duality perfectly, in a performance that was at once rigorous and richly eloquent. No wonder the audience brought him back for another — in this case, a sweet, serene account of the slow movement from Bach’s Sonata No. 3 in C, BWV 1005.

Ehnes’ contribution was the high point of a program that was otherwise sleekly majestic, but also weighed down at times by Janowski’s deliberate and fastidious approach. Mendelssohn’s “Ruy Blas” Overture moved persuasively from the gleaming and dark-hued brass opening through a series of dexterously balanced melodies and orchestral effects to culminate in an ebullient burst of triumph.

Conductor Marek Janowski Photo: Felix Broede

The Wagnerian excerpts that occupied the second half, though — the Overture and Venusberg music from “Tannhäuser” followed by the Prelude and “Liebestod” of “Tristan und Isolde” — found conductor and orchestra intent on coloring well within the lines.

At times this paid off, especially in the stately brass textures and vivid string playing that the orchestra mustered throughout. Yet Janowski — who has often been such a revelatory interpreter of the music of Beethoven and Brahms — seemed stymied here by his commitment to logic above all else. As he carefully put one foot in front of another, the madness and erotic delirium of Wagner’s writing never materialized.